Backstage Beauty Report: Spring's Hottest Shade

As early as Fashion Week in New York a few weeks ago, I had a feeling that blue was going to be big for spring. Last season makeup artist Pat McGrath experimented with the color, using a cerulean shade to create two of the season's boldest looks: blue-coated lashes at Stella McCartney and a funky blue cat eye at Anna Sui. Multiple cosmetic companies caught on and launched electric blue mascaras inspired by the Stella look, as well as bright blue eye shadows (one of which nabbed our Best of Beauty award for bright eye shadow of the year). When I saw makeup artist Tom Pecheux use a stroke of navy eyeliner at Altuzarra, I knew we hadn't had enough of fall's brief blue moment. And Pecheux's blue streak was just be the beginning—I saw it over and over again the past few weeks, at shows like Anna Sui and Michael Kors in New York, and at Versus and Giorgio Armani in Milan (Armani is on the right, above).

At the first show of Paris Fashion Week Tuesday evening, Pecheux went for blue again at Anthony Vaccarello's spring show, this time choosing a lighter ocean blue shade that was meant to mimic the effect of light rippling along water (that's it on the left, above). He started by lining the lids with Estée Lauder Kajal Eyeliner in Blackened Sapphire pencil, but because he didn't want it to look too turquoise or bright, he layered it under a mix of black cream eyeliner and a shimmery gray cream shadow that Estée Lauder will be launching in spring 2013 (look out for the Paint Pot in Steel). And while the color looks amazing on blue-eyed girls (just check out our Instagram to see some shots I took—the models with blue eyes look positively surreal), mixing the sky blue color with gray ensured it looked good on any skin tone. Because as Pecheux explained backstage yesterday, "Blue really is just a faded version of black."